Critique of What I've Learned from Men

In Barbara Ehrenreich's article "What I've Learned from Men" she discusses that women can learn a lot from men. How the lack of toughness in a woman's personality can negatively affect their progression and position in life. The author also discusses how some of the "ladylike" qualities can prove to be hindering to progress. Barbara's article is persuasive because the writing style was appealing, the evidence was logical, and the article was well structured and easy to follow.

The article's extreme sarcastic and humorous tone helps transmits the wanted concept, unlike most feminist articles which consists of redundant repetition of needed freedoms, mistakes and needs. A great example of this humorous approach is how the writer avoided falling into the "ladylike" category by saying, "We're still too ladylike. Let me try this again- We're still too damn ladylike" (Ehrenreich, 2005, p.308), using a swear word (damn) to break the existing female stereotype. The sarcasms was emphasized in the introduction, where countless differences between the genders have been listed, such a light hearted start give a sense of acceptance of what is to come.

On a more serious note, the article discusses, with evidence, important issues. How women think it is their responsibility to "niceness" attitude in a conversation, and how this alleged responsibility negatively affected the author first hand. Another issue is sexual harassment; the writer speaks from personal experience as she explains the story of the professor that sexually harassed her over the course of a 20 minute conversation; where she did not react as she was maintaining "nice" environment (Ehrenreich, 2005, p.308). Such a story appeals to logic, one may wonder, "How can highly educated prestigious professor react in such an unethical manner?" Examples like this indicate that change must take place to...

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...Have you as a woman ever noticed that it is almost realistically impossible for us to get along with men? It seems like no matter how hard we try or how hard we try to pretend we understand them, we always seem to come off as stupid and sometimes crazy to them. I believe most women view some men as unclassy, selfish human beings who lack the ability to give respect or acknowledge the fact that women are not there to take care of them. In some ways, men are sometimes seen as the term that women use often: animals. However, that would be an immoral judgment. In Barbara Ehrenreich's short essay, "WhatI'velearnedfromMen," she describes and bases her essay on things women can learn frommen. In this essay, she proves that men influence women to become tough because of all the battles and arguments between the genders which make women realize they are too ladylike to "put out" in front of men simply because they are not mentally strong enough.
I believe the author is trying to get her point out to all women and tell them to stand up for themselves in front of men and that we should stop doing all the work. "In conversations with men, we do almost all the work: sociologists have observed that in male-female social interactions it's the woman who throws out leading questions...

...WhatI’veLearnedFromMen Response
In my opinion, “WhatI’veLearnedfromMen,” was by far, the most powerful essay of the six we read. The essay discusses the things that women should learn frommen. The essay explains how women need to toughen up, and start taking credit for their accomplishments. This essay was very effective because Ehrenreich was both sarcastic, and serious.
As I stated earlier, Ehrenreich talked about how women need to start taking credit for their accomplishments which was a key part of the text. On page 258, Ehrenreich says, “ By putting herself down, a woman avoids feeling brazenly powerful and potentially “selfish” ; she also does the traditional lady’s work of trying to make everyone feel better (She’s not really so smart after all, just lucky” ). This is a problem I see in a lot of women. Many women, don’t take credit for anything they accomplish. They say that they just got lucky as if they didn’t work hard to accomplish what they worked for. It’s almost like they are trying to give credit to men for everything even though they work just as hard. I think a lot of fell obligated to do a lot of work, but not to take any credit for it. On page 258, Ehrenreich says, “ I think women should stop taking responsibility for every human interaction we...

...WhatI’velearnedfromMen
Is it true that women could learn some useful things frommen? And is it right that women are always responsible for every interaction? Is it their responsibility to keep the conversation going well? Also, are women too polite in situations so men take advantage of them? And many other questions could be asked; they might or might not be true. Every gender has his/her opinion of these questions; males could answer these questions differently from females. According to the article “WhatI’veLearnedfromMen” the author Barbara Ehrenreich is willing to admit that there are some useful things to learn frommen; basically she thinks that women could learn how to get strong and tough. In the article, the author achieves her purpose and convinces her readers that women need to get tougher and learn how stand up for themselves.
To sum up, the article “What I’V LearnedfromMen” claims that women don’t have the same power as men. Therefore, Ehrenreich claims that there are some useful things that women can learn frommen. The article shows that because women are too ladylike, men sometimes take advantage of them. Also,...

...In the article “WhatI’veLearnedfromMen.” The author Barbara Ehrenreich defines and roots her essay on things women can learn frommen. She upholds that men influence women to become tough because of all the conflicts and arguments between the genders that make women recognize they are too ladylike when they are in a battle with men. She also explains that women should learn to get tough and take credit when they have accomplished or succeeded in a certain task and not just blame it on luck. Unfortunately, the article “WhatI’veLearnedfromMen” is fruitless because the author hasn’t displayed any credible sources that support what she is claiming and also exhibits an amount of logical fallacies.
First of all, there are several logical fallacies found in the article, which shows us why Barbara’s article is ineffectual. “I, a full-grown feminist…had behaved like a ninny-or, as I now understand it, like a lady.” This sentence is an example of Ad Hominem. The reason is that she refers to herself as a ninny, a foolish person, or in other words as a lady. Thus, she is attacking herself and all the other ladies who experience a similar event rather than the argument. Identically, the sentence “we spend a great deal of time acting like a wimp.” is another example of...

...noticed that it is almost realistically impossible for us to get along with men? It seems like no matter how hard we try or how hard we try to pretend we understand them, we always seem to come off as stupid and sometimes crazy to them. I believe most women view some men as unclassy, selfish human beings who lack the ability to give respect or acknowledge the fact that women are not there to take care of them. In Barbara Ehrenreich's short essay, "WhatI'velearnedfromMen," she describes and bases her essay on things women can learn frommen. In this essay, she proves that men influence women to become tough because of all the battles and arguments between the genders which make women realize they are too ladylike to "put out" in front of men simply because they are not mentally strong enough.
This essay speaks of all the things women should learn frommen, both on serious and sarcastic notes. For the most part however, it explains that women should in fact learn to get tough and take credit when credit is due. For example, in the essay Ehreneich states, "what I think women could learn frommen is how to get tough." I believe Ehrenreich is right when she says women can learn frommen. These things for example...

...﻿Raymond Morris
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...I'velearned - That you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can beloved. The rest is up to them.
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I'velearned - that it's not what you have in your life but who you have in your life that counts.
I'velearned - that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better know something.
I'velearned - that it's not what happens to people that's important. It's what they do aboutit.
I'velearned - that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.
I'velearned - that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
I'velearned - that either you control your attitude or it controlsyou.
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...this term was very informal. It helped me better recognize the significance of life history despite who a person is or where they came from. This course caused me to evaluate my past life lectures and practices. In every story or short story we were assigned to read there was a part I could relate to, or something significant that reminded me of a previous event I experienced throughout my life. I connected to the stories from similar earlier period experiences. The stories were very detailed, imaginable and filled with knowledge and experience. Each time I read one I could picture myself being there. American literature has bought out both positive and negative life practices to my mind and it was good to reflect about then and say to myself, “Look how far I’ve come”.
The story I could connect to the most was “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. While reading this story I notion the author was describing so many similar things of my family. My aunt was just like Dee. She didn’t comprehend the significance of the heritage. She too wanted to alter her name for an African name. Growing up together, we would spend majority of our summers, Easter and the other holidays in the Bahamas with our extended family. It educated all of us the meaning and significance of our past and about the seventy year old straw hat my great-grandmother kept from age group to age group. This story had an immense force on me because I am...